Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to start by speaking briefly to the issue of supply management.
Mr. Kingston, you said that the Australian and New Zealand examples were quite fantastic. If we look at the facts, however, we see that the situation for producers in Australia is so disastrous that the government of that country has had to promise $555 million in subsidies, more than a half billion Australian dollars, to enable the industry and producers to catch up.
Let us talk about prices. Since deregulation, the prices of dairy products and milk in New Zealand and the prices of eggs in Australia have been higher than in Canada. When we look at American prices, the ones we compare ourselves to most of the time, the reason they are lower is that the products are heavily subsidized, which is not the case here in Canada.
So we have to include some specifics in talking about this. People always cite a lot of things that are presented as revealed truth. The fact is that the supply management system has enabled us to retain a number of small producers and to improve their productivity and has prevented vertical regression, which is ultimately not to the benefit of producers because it concentrates production in too few hands.
I would like to put my first question to Ms. Moreau and Mr. Cadieux. In fact, I am going to play devil's advocate on the question of small business tax rates. This is a question that was addressed quickly.
You are aiming for a reduction of the current rate from 10.5% to 9%. It is regularly argued, and Mr. Kingston also mentioned this, that reducing income taxes for small businesses is a hindrance to their growth and innovation.
How do you reply to that argument, which is often made?